Commercial buildings typically provide large open floor areas intended for use as offices and the like, and the end user typically determines the most efficient use of the floor space for his own needs, and selects how the floor space is to be divided into smaller working spaces through the use of portable wall panels or the like. To optimize the usage of the space while retaining significant flexibility with respect to such usage and reconfiguration, most modern offices utilize what is conventionally referred to as "systems" furniture for dividing large floor space areas into smaller workstations. This "systems" furniture typically utilizes interior upright space-dividing panels which serially connect together through two-panel straight or angled connections, or through suitable three- or four-panel connections, to define a large plurality of individual workstations. Such panels are typically less than floor-to-ceiling height, and cooperate with other furniture components to define an equipped workstation. These components may involve worksurfaces, file cabinets and the like which mount directly on and are supported by the wall panels, or freestanding furniture components such as tables and file cabinets, and commonly a combination of both wall-mounted and free-standing components are utilized.
These workstations must provide access to both electrical power and communication cabling. The problems associated with the supplying of electrical power to the workstations has been greatly simplified by the development of modular electrical systems which cooperate with and readily mount on the panels, and which can be readily reconfigured, so as to provide significant flexibility and simplicity with respect to the supplying of electrical power to the individual workstations. Such modular electrical systems for use with office furniture, particularly interior space-dividing wall panels, are now conventional and have been extensively utilized for over 15 years. The supplying of communication cables to workstations defined by such panel systems, however, continues to be a formidable problem in the office furniture environment.
More specifically, the conventional and widely utilized practice at the present time is to provide office systems with conventional communication cables which are all connected back to a main wiring closet. That is, a large number of conventional four pair communication cables are connected to control equipment in the wiring closet, and the individual cables are then fed through floor conduits or ceiling clearance spaces to various work areas, at which point the individual cables are then fed into interior channels or raceways which extend along the panels, typically along the tops or bottoms of the panels. Each cable typically terminate in a standard connector, such as a conventional communication jack which mounts in the side of the panel, typically either at the base or at worksurface height. With such arrangement, however, and particularly in view of the extensive use of communication equipment within the work space, which equipment will typically include a telephone, a computer and possibly other equipment such as a facsimile machine, and the additional requirement that computers be interlinked with one another or with a common mainframe, the supplying of communication cables (i.e., communication links) from the wiring closet to the individual workstations creates significant labor and installation difficulties since the large number of cables must typically be installed after the furniture system has been fully assembled at the job site, and the number of such cables and the length thereof as they extend from the wiring closet to the individual workstations create a significant jungle of cables so that initial layout and installation is both time consuming and costly. Further, such systems greatly impede the overall flexibility of the system with respect to hook-up to the various communication links, particularly for computers, and also greatly restricts or at least greatly increases the difficulty of modifying or reconfiguring either the communication system or the furniture system. Any significant modification of either the communication or furniture system requires significant removal of the communication cables and, after the furniture system has been reconfigured, substantially a wholly new installation of the communication cables from the wiring closet to the individual workstations is required. The current communication cabling systems, even though they have been widely utilized for many years and continue to be utilized, nevertheless greatly minimize the advantages associated with furniture systems of this type, particularly with respect to the ability to easily install, modify or reconfigure such furniture systems when provided with a communication system thereon.
To improve on the conventional communication systems currently in use, various attempts have been made to provide at least limited modularity so as to provide some simplification with respect to the installation of communication connections to a plurality of workstations. The current suggestions, however, provide only minor advancements with respect to the problems associated with the current systems and do not provide the degree of selection and flexibility desired or required so as to greatly simplify the installation and the reconfiguration of such systems on furniture, particularly wall panels. The known attempts, to the best of the inventors' knowledge, have not achieved significant commercial acceptance or utilization. Examples of these prior attempts are illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,272,277, 5,160,276 and 4,928,303.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide an improved modular communication system particularly for use on office furniture including wall panels, which improved system overcomes many of the significant problems and disadvantages which are associated with conventional communication cabling systems and which have been tolerated for a long period of time in view of the lack of a desirable solution thereto.
More specifically, it is an object of this invention to provide an improved modular communication cabling system which is particularly desirable for mounting on or within furniture wall panels which define a plurality of workstations, with the modular system incorporating a plurality of communication links which can be selectively tapped off at various workstations to facilitate connection to communication equipment such as telephones, computers and the like.
A further object of the invention is to provide a modular communication system, as aforesaid, which permits prefabrication of a minimal number of modules which make up the system, which modules can be easily and efficiently mounted on the panels and interconnected at the job site so as to greatly simplify the initial installation of the communication system, and at the same time greatly simplify subsequent modification or reconfiguration of either the communication system or of the paneling system. If desired, some of the modules can be mounted on the panels at the factory and shipped to the job site, so that remaining modules are then easily and efficiently installed at the job site so as to interconnect the system.
A still further object of the invention is to provide an improved modular communication system, as aforesaid, which includes modules permitting easy selection of at least one communication link for supply to a workstation, with the selection of the various links of the system and the supplying thereof to the individual workstations being easily and efficiently accomplished at the job site and at the individual workstations after the furniture system has been assembled.
Still a further object of the invention is to provide an improved modular communication system, as aforesaid, which includes the capability of permitting a large plurality of communication links to extend throughout the entire length of the modular system, and which includes a tap-off feature which, when it selects one of the links for tap-off to a selected workstation, causes this link to be dead downstream of the tap-off location.
In addition, it is an object of the invention that such tap-off feature have the capability of permitting any one or more of the grouping of communication links to be tapped off at a particular tap-off location which selection may thereafter be readily changed. It is a further object that such tap-off feature be accomplished by a limited number of different tap-off units.
According to the invention, there is provided an improved modular communication system which is particularly desirable for use on or in association with furniture, and particularly interior space-dividing wall panels which are serially connected together to define a plurality of adjacent workstations. The modular communication system is defined by a plurality of prefabricated modules, one of which is an elongate main distribution module which is mountable within a raceway which is associated with the panel, for example at the bottom thereof, and extends horizontally longitudinally along the panel length. This elongate main distribution module, in one embodiment, has a length which approximately corresponds to the panel length, and additionally has terminals or connectors at opposite ends so that a plurality of such main distribution modules can be serially connected so as to extend along a plurality of serially-connected panels which define a plurality of adjacent workstations. The main communication modules define a plurality of communication links (i.e., paths), with each link preferably being defined by eight conductors (i.e., four pairs) such being a,standard and well recognized communication link. The modular communication system also includes tap-off modules which cooperate with the main distribution modules to permit one (two in the preferred embodiment) of the communication links to be tapped off at a workstation so as to permit electronic equipment (such as a telephone and/or a computer) to be joined thereto. The tap-off module cooperates with the system so as to permit only the selected link or links to be tapped off and accessible at the workstation, with the remaining links of the system being transmitted throughout the serially-connected main communication modules for tap-off of other links at other locations or workstations.
In the modular communication system, as aforesaid, the tap-off module and its cooperation with the main communication modules, in a preferred embodiment, enables the installer to make a selection decision as to which link or links will be accessible at the workstation, with these selected links then being dead or disconnected downstream of the tap-off point, thereby simplifying not only the initial installation of the system and the hook-up of equipment within various workstations to different communication links, but also the subsequent reconfiguration of the communication system or of the overall furniture system.
The modular communication system, as aforesaid, also preferably includes an in-feed module which connects to the serially-connected main distribution modules so as to supply the plurality of communication links thereto, with the in-feed having a main trunk cable or the like connected thereto for connection back to the telecommunication closet. The in-feed module can be positioned for cooperation with the main distribution modules to permit some of the plurality of communication links to flow in one downstream direction therefrom, and the other of the plurality of telecommunications links to extend downstream in the opposite direction therefrom.
In the improved modular communication system, in a preferred embodiment as disclosed hereinafter, the system provides 16 telecommunication links which extend throughout the system, and the tap-off preferably accesses two links to facilitate the supplying of two different links to each of eight different workstations, with one of the links for each workstation preferably being for voice communication (i.e., a telephone) and the other link preferably being for data communication (i.e., a computer).
The particular tap-off modules in the preferred embodiment preferably are serially connected between the adjacent ends of two main communication modules. The tap-off module preferably includes circuit boards which normally pass unused communication links therethrough to the downstream main communication modules for subsequent tap off and also tap off at least one particular grouping of links to the workstation area. The tap off function is accomplished either by direct connection to a particular grouping being tapped off or by selectively tapping off said grouping by switches or the like.
Other objects and purposes of the invention, and variations thereof, will be apparent upon reading the following specification and inspecting the accompanying drawings.